Field testing S170: Dark till dark, rain or shine, field testing, 40 laps a day for months…

We operated three shifts, Shift 1 was “before work” daybreak till office hours, Shift 2 was 8.45 am to 1 pm  (often the dig crew) and Shift 3 started at 1 and ran until dark. 40 laps a day is over 4 times the average bike park user and we were lapping some of the most abusive trails in the UK, we needed those shifts because one rider simply couldn’t cope with the physical abuse!

Lead machine Operator Jamie Kirkbride said “In a word it was grim! Cold, wet, dark, muddy and repetitive. Breakfast most days was a pack of Monster Munch and a Red Bull in the back of the Landrover,I got good at the top section of racetrack, definitely Type 2 fun.”

Dan Atherton said “Testing at this level was driven by the engineers and the need to rack up a huge amount of hours on the bike. The thing that stood out for me was how intense things got, we had a relatively short window and we knew that we had to get it right. Our Head Designer Rob Gow was driving the whole testing schedule, he’s the one who knew the importance of speeding up the process of time by getting in loads of laps, and with riders at different levels so it was full company involvement with dig crew taking time out of digging, Dan Brown and the production and engineering boys, coming over before work and Gee, Charlie, me and a couple of others flat out going as fast as we could! It made for pretty heavy days – we were pissed off with Rob the whole time J  It’s what makes him and Scott and Will so good; that ability to focus on what’s important and what needs to be done, nothing else.”

In the Dyfi, we carefully selected a combination of trails to ensure all natures of abuse were covered off, inside and outside of the Park. Different aspects of the testing required different tracks or features to demonstrate the full range of possibilities so depending on what we were looking for we’d focus on different parts of the track.

Dan said “We ran part of the compliance feedback around corners with plenty of support; a good steep berm so you could push as hard as you can without worrying about the tyres; the only thing you need to think about is the flex of the bike. Aluminium is inherently stiffer than carbon so we were testing “is the rear end pliable enough?”  At P1 (prototype 1) stage the major feedback, especially from the fast guys was that the rear end was too stiff, so for P2 we made it more compliant, and the testing started again!!”

Suspension came to the fore on the rough Racetrack while geometry was key on longer rides outside of the park.  We learnt a lot in so many areas  - for example on sound-deadening; it’s a lot harder to get right on the aluminium bike than the A-Range bike as any sound is amplified through the tubes. The mix of World Cup racers, local free-riders and novice riders ensured we covered all the bases from race pace laps to flat landings and more cases than you could ever dream of! All those different skill levels were super important in fine-tuning the finished ride.   

We managed our P1 testing in the summer when the long hours were relatively easy to achieve. But P2 testing took us into the depths of winter. There are two drawbacks there (on top of freezing the riders to death) one is that you’re limited by daylight hours (riding with lights just isn’t abusive enough) and the second is that testing in the wet is great for loads of reasons (particularly all the bearing and hardware tests) but even riders like Gee, Charlie and Dan can’t push as hard as they would in the dry.